WORK DESCRIPTION:
The children love the Summer Camps - they're kept entertained and have somewhere to go during school holidays when there's no one around to look after them, and they get a meal and win prizes! The prize for our volunteers is the big grins across all the kids' faces :-)

One of the obvious activities will be sports - as many varied sports as possible - plus various other children's activities, such as:

  • Any ball games, like Football, Cricket, Basketball, Rounders or Netball
  • Frisbee games
  • Dancing - Ghanaians love to dance, so putting together a dance concert or dance competition would be fun
  • Drama - Informal Drama productions is another activity that can be initiated - and all kids love play-acting!
  • Music - teaching them to sing, to play an instrument and perhaps to put together a concert to be performed at the end of the holidays
  • Magic tricks, juggling or circus-type activities
  • Simple games like hopscotch, skipping, hula-hoops
  • Arts & Crafts - here there are many options.
  • Any creative activities, like face painting
  • Reading from story books
  • Or anything else your imagination can dream up that will amuse the children.

The kids will be learning to use English at the same time, so they'll not only have fun, they'll also benefit from the activity. These activities also benefit the children by improving their team-work skills, social interaction and building their confidence.

The Summer Camp will take place in the grounds of one of the local schools in Kwabenya and will be for children from all around the area, including other schools in the community. Kwabenya is a small town/suburb about forty minutes drive outside Accra city centre and a place where many of our teaching volunteers are based.

You may work for only a few hours a day, or you may find that you want to devote more time to the children. The school will remain open during the holidays because they are also running extra-curricular academic lessons for the children who need them.

You may work with large or small groups of children, so you need to be diverse and organised, but you are encouraged to utilise any skills or passions you have, whether these are playing sport, music, drama or just games.

ACCOMMODATION

Your accommodation will vary, depending on your work location. You will either be staying in a family run hostel or with a host family.

The hostel is a comfortable guest house accommodation, with 11 rooms, the owners are very friendly and they are Ghanian so you can still experience the culture.

Alternatively you may be staying with ahost family. This means that you get to eat, sleep, work, socialise and generally live like a Ghanaian. Local family stays enable you to fully experience the local culture from the inside.

Many of our volunteers remain friends with their host families long after they leave Ghana and in some cases they return to the country later especially to visit their family. Sometimes members of their Ghanaian family have even gone to visit them in their home country.

"My family - Lizzie and Prince are lovely. The children are very sweet, and I feel extremely lucky to have been placed with them. The house is of a Western standard in most ways, and Lizzie's cooking is excellent. I feel a part of their family already."

FOOD:
Food is included in your placement and will be local cuisine - again this is to enable you to fully experience living as local Ghanaians do.